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Department of Physics
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Department News |
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2006 News |
Congratulations on the AAPT Outstanding Teaching Awards
Graduate Teaching Assistants Tonmoy Chakraborty, Carlos M. Hernandez, Will Maddox, Manori Nadesalingam, and Somilkumar Rathi have been honored with the 2007 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards of the American Association of Physics Teachers. http://www.aapt.org/Grants/outstandingta.cfm |
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UT Arlington TODAY: November 6, 2007
Accolades
Several UT Arlington physics faculty, undergraduate and graduate students attended the recent Joint Texas Section of the American Physical Society (TSAPS) and Society of Physics Students (SPS) meeting in College Station at the campus of Texas A&M University. Physics faculty attending included Professor and Chair James Horwitz, Professors Ramon Lopez, Suresh Sharma and John Fry. Undergraduate physics SPS students attending included SPS President Cassie Dobbs, Pierce Weatherly, Phyllis Whittlesey, Jose Barona, Kenneth Crawford and Crystal Red Eagle. Physics graduate students attending included Mingzhen Yao, Ximena Cid, Elizabeth Mitchell, Robert Bruntz, and Jorge Landivar. Horwitz presented three talks, while Yao, Cid, Mitchell, Bruntz and Landivar made presentations on their research work. Several undergraduate and graduate students are supervised in their space physics research by Professor Lopez, an SPS advisor. Sharma is vice-chair of the TSAPS and attended an executive session of the meeting. |
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UT Arlington TODAY: November 6, 2007
In the News
Manfred Cuntz, associate professor of physics and co-director of astronomy, is involved in the search for Earth-like planets outside our own solar system. Texas Technology |
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UT Arlington TODAY: November 5, 2007
Accolades
Raymond Atta-Fynn in the department of physics recently co-authored and published a paper, “Real space information from fluctuation electron microscopy: applications to amorphous silicon,” in the IOP Publishing journal, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. The paper is also featured in the November 2007 print version of JPCM. |
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UT Arlington TODAY: October 15, 2007
Accolades
Yiping Wang, Yang Li, Chuanbing Rong and J. Ping Liu of the department of physics recently co-authored and published a paper in the IOP Publishing journal Nanotechnology. The paper, “Sm–Co hard magnetic nanoparticles prepared by surfactant-assisted ball milling,” appears in the current online edition and is freely available at the following link: http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0957-4484/18/46/465701. |
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UT Arlington Today: September 6, 2007
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS TO TEACH AT UT ARLINGTON
A noted space physicist and physics and science education expert, Dr. Ramon Lopez, is joining The University of Texas at Arlington Department of Physics and will teach introductory physics this fall. Lopez comes from Florida Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Florida Tech, he was C. Sharp Cook Distinguished Professor of Physics and Chair of the Department of Physics at the University of Texas at El Paso. Lopez was born in the continental United States and is Puerta Rican. He has approximately 87 peer-reviewed publications in space physics, and has made numerous invited presentations at various national and international conferences. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Space Science Institute’s 1999 Scientist in Education Achievement Award and the American Physical Society’s 2002 Nicholson Medal for Humanitarian Service to Science. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1999. Lopez is bringing a new multi-year grant of almost $1 million in association with his National Science Foundation-funded research of the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling (CISM). A Visualization Laboratory, where much of his research will be conducted, is currently being designed in the basement of Science Hall. Read more. |
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UT Arlington Today: August 20, 2007
PROFESSORS AWARDED NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION GRANT
University of Texas at Arlington Assistant Professor of Physics Wei Chen is the principal investigator and Associate Professor Andrew Brandt is the co-principal investigator for a $300,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation/Department of Homeland Security Academic Research Initiative. Alan Joly of Pacific Northwestern National Lab is a collaborator. The investigators will use nano-particles to detect uranium to aid in homeland security. Detecting uranium is a critical concern due to its potential for use in nuclear terrorism. Although there have recently been significant improvements in the development of scintillator materials, no current scintillator has the ideal combination of properties. The researchers plan to develop a novel kind of nanostructure phosphor for radiation detection. They will pursue two avenues for scintillation luminescence enhancement: coating scintillation Nan particles to silver and gold and using periodic surface patterning as in LED enhancement. Read more.
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Monday,
June 18
News
Release
UT ARLINGTON PHYSICS
PROFESSOR WINS GRANT
FROM OFFICE OF HIGH
ENERGY PHYSICS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Sue
Stevens, (817) 272-3317,
sstevens@uta.edu
ARLINGTON–University of
Texas at Arlington
Associate Professor of
Physics Andrew Brandt,
along with only seven
other principal
investigators from
Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Carnegie
Mellon University,
Washington University at
St. Louis, Iowa State
University, University
of Cincinnati, Texas
Tech and University of
California, Irvine, won
a grant from The
Advanced Detector
Research (ADR) program.
The ADR is a competitive
grant program in the
Office of High Energy
Physics that supports
detector research by
university-based
physicists. The ADR
program seeks to
encourage research into
detector technologies
that will enable new,
not yet approved
experiments. For the
fiscal year 2007 cycle,
eight proposals were
selected for funding
based on external peer
reviews, totaling
$804,000 in new
commitments. The winners
will investigate new or
improved detector
technologies, including
high-resolution
calorimetry, fast
time-of-flight counters,
autonomous power and
communications systems
for array detectors,
improved Cherenkov
techniques and very fast
triggers.
Brandt's $73,000 award
is for research and
development involving a
detector that aims to
measure the time that a
proton passes through a
small quartz detector
with an accuracy of 10
picoseconds. (By way of
comparison, light
travels only 3 mm in 10
picoseconds.) Personnel
and some equipment for
this project has been
provided by a previous
Texas ARP grant, while
the DOE award primarily
provides advanced
electronic equipment,
including an extremely
fast (and expensive)
oscilloscope.
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Thursday, June 14
News
Release
HABITABLE PLANET
IDENTIFIED BY UT
ARLINGTON ASTRONOMER AND
TEAM
ARLINGTON–Dr. Manfred
Cuntz of The University
of Texas at Arlington
and fellow scientists at
the Potsdam Institute
for Climate Impact
Research in Germany got
a surprise during their
search for a second
Earth.
The scientists were
investigating the
habitability of the
planetary system Gliese
581 in the constellation
Libra, 20 light-years
away. With the help of a
model for the evolution
of Earth-like planets
coupled with a climate
model, they were able to
demonstrate habitable
conditions on the planet
Gliese 581d, while
determining that its
smaller brother, Gliese
581c, previously
acclaimed as a “second
Earth” has to be
classified as
uninhabitable.
Both planets
investigated are
so-called Super-Earths;
i.e. planets with a mass
of up to 10 times higher
than that of the Earth.
In fact, Gliese 581d
very likely has about
eight Earth masses,
whereas Gliese 581c has
five Earth masses.
“Gliese 581c is just too
hot for life to exist,”
said Cuntz, “owing to
the fact that the planet
is too close to its host
star – just like Venus
is too close to the
Sun.”
This contradicts the
findings of another
research team in April
of this year that
proclaimed Gl 581c the
first habitable planet
outside our solar
system.
The new investigations
incorporate the thermal
evolution of planets,
i.e. the cooling of the
planetary body from its
formation and the
connected geodynamic
parameters. Because of
their heavy masses the
Potsdam scientists
consider it likely that
both Gliese 581c and
Gliese 581d have dense
atmospheres. Previous
calculations for Gliese
581c derived the
habitability of this
planet only from
temperatures calculated
for the radiation
balance of the planetary
surface without an
atmosphere.
Gliese 581d, the other
Super-Earth in this
system, orbits at a
distance of 23 million
miles, which would
normally make it too
cold for liquid water.
However, the same
greenhouse effect that
torches Gliese 581c, the
smaller and closer
planet, would be able to
warm the larger outer
one and make it
habitable, Cuntz said.
He and his colleagues
have submitted a paper
to the journal Astronomy
and Astrophysics
detailing their
findings.
Cuntz said the planetary
system Gliese 581, with
probably three planets
orbiting a red dwarf
star, contains the
closest analogues to the
Earth that have been
found so far. The
central star has about
100 times less
luminosity than our Sun.
Astronomers will learn
more about these planets
when upcoming space
missions like NASA’s
Terrestrial Planet
Finder and the European
Space Agency's Darwin,
designed to study
terrestrial planets in
the realms beyond our
solar system, are in
operation.
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Wednesday, June 13
News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Sue
Stevens
FERMILAB PHYSICISTS
DISCOVER "TRIPLE-SCOOP"
BARYON;
THREE-QUARK PARTICLE
CONTAINS ONE QUARK FROM
EACH FAMILY
ARLINGTON–Physicists at
The University of Texas
at Arlington are part of
a Department of Energy
Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory
experiment, DZero, which
has discovered a new
heavy particle, the Ξ_b
(pronounced "zigh sub
b") baryon.
The UTA scientists are
Professors Andy White
and Kaushik De,
Associate Professors
Andrew Brandt and
Jaehoon Yu, Staff
Physicists Dr. Mark
Sosebee and Dr. Jia Li,
and Research Assistant
Professor Dr. Armen
Vartapetian, along with
several postdoctoral
researchers and graduate
students.
The newly discovered
particle has a mass of
5.774±0.019 GeV/c2,
approximately six times
the proton mass. The
newly discovered
electrically charged Ξ_b
baryon, also known as
the "cascade b," is made
of a down, a strange and
a bottom quark. It is
the first observed
baryon formed of quarks
from all three families
of matter. Its discovery
and the measurement of
its mass provide new
understanding of how the
strong nuclear force
acts upon quarks, the
basic building blocks of
matter.
The DZero experiment has
reported the discovery
of the cascade b baryon
in a paper submitted to
Physical Review Letters
on June 12.
"Knowing the mass of the
cascade b baryon gives
scientists information
they need in order to
develop accurate models
of how individual quarks
are bound together into
larger particles such as
protons and neutrons,"
said Physicist and
Associate Director for
High Energy Physics for
the Department of
Energy's Office of
Science Robin Staffin.
The cascade b is
produced in high-energy
proton-antiproton
collisions at Fermilab's
Tevatron. A baryon is a
particle of matter made
of three fundamental
building blocks called
quarks. The most
familiar baryons are the
proton and neutron of
the atomic nucleus,
consisting of up and
down quarks. Although
protons and neutrons
make up the majority of
known matter today,
baryons composed of
heavier quarks,
including the cascade b,
were abundant soon after
the Big Bang at the
beginning of the
universe.
The Standard Model of
High Energy Physics
summarizes the basic
building blocks of
matter, which come in
three distinct families
of quarks and their
sister particles, the
leptons. The first
family contains the up
and down quarks. Heavier
charm and strange quarks
form the second family,
while the top and
bottom, the heaviest
quarks, make up the
third. The strong force
binds the quarks
together into larger
particles, including the
cascade b baryon. The
cascade b fills a
missing slot in the
Standard Model.
Prior to this discovery,
only indirect evidence
for the cascade b had
been reported by
experiments at the Large
Electron-Positron
collider at the CERN
Laboratory near Geneva,
Switzerland. For the
first time, the DZero
experiment has
positively identified
the cascade b baryon
from its decay daughter
particles in a
remarkably complex feat
of detection. Most of
the particles produced
in high-energy
collisions are
short-lived and decay
almost instantaneously
into lighter stable
particles. Particle
detectors such as DZero
measure these stable
decay products to
discover the new
particles produced in
the collision.
Once produced, the
cascade b travels
several millimeters at
nearly the speed of
light before the action
of the weak nuclear
force causes it to
disintegrate into two
well-known particles
called J/Ψ ("jay-sigh")
and Ξ- ("zigh minus").
The J/Ψ then promptly
decays into a pair of
muons, common particles
that are cousins of
electrons. The Ξ-
baryon, on the other
hand, travels several
centimeters before
decaying into yet
another unstable
particle called a Λ
("lambda") baryon, along
with another long-lived
particle called a pion.
The Λ baryon too can
travel several
centimeters before
ultimately decaying to a
proton and a pion.
Sifting through data
from trillions of
collisions produced over
the last five years to
identify these final
decay products, DZero
physicists have detected
19 cascade b candidate
events. The odds of the
observed signal being
due to something other
than the cascade b are
estimated to be one in
30 million.
DZero is an
international experiment
of about 610 physicists
from 88 institutions in
19 countries. It is
supported by the
Department of Energy,
the National Science
Foundation, and a number
of international funding
agencies. Fermilab is a
national laboratory
funded by the Office of
Science of the U.S.
Department of Energy,
operated under contract
by Fermi Research
Alliance, LLC.
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Friday,
May 4, 2007
UT
Arlington TODAY
PROFESSOR AND
PLANETARIUM DIRECTOR
FILM FLIGHT FOR NEW
PLANETARIUM SHOW
The University of Texas
at Arlington Associate
Professor of Physics
Manfred Cuntz, whose
work with NASA on
finding life in the
universe is featured in
the UT Arlington
planetarium show “Cosmic
CSI,” has received
another NASA Education
and Outreach Grant to
develop a new
planetarium show. The
new show is tentatively
titled “SOFIA and the
Cool Cosmos.” This
grant, awarded by the
NASA Ames Research
Center at Moffett Field,
Calif., will be used to
develop a show on the
Stratospheric
Observatory for Infrared
Astronomy (SOFIA). SOFIA
is the world’s largest
airborne observatory
consisting of an
8.2-foot diameter
telescope built into a
converted Boeing 747SP.
Peering out through an
open cavity in the side
of the aircraft, the
telescope will allow
astronomers to obtain
sharper infrared images
than ever before. It
will focus on the
mid-and-far infrared of
the light spectrum
invisible to the human
eye and ground-based
observatories. SOFIA’s
operating altitude will
be at or above 41,000
feet, thus avoiding 99
percent of the obscuring
water vapor.
Read more. |
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Thursday,
May 3, 2007
UT
Arlington TODAY
ASTRONOMY STUDENTS,
STAFF INTERVIEWED ON
DALLAS COMMUNITY
TELEVISION
“Teen Talk,” a career
exploration program for
teens produced by Lyn
Williams, visited UT
Arlington last weekend
to film a program about
astronomy that will be
shown on the Dallas
cable channel. Interim
Planetarium Director Joe
Eakin was interviewed,
as well as astronomy
students Christy Cox,
Amber McCuddy and
Phyllis Whittlesey.
Others taking a turn on
camera were Associate
Professor and
Co-Director of the
Astronomy Program
Manfred Cuntz, doctoral
student Peter Williams,
Astronomy Lecturer
Nilakshi Veerabathina,
Astronomy Lab Supervisor
Levent Gurdemir and
Sarang Brahme, the
president of Olympus
Mons, Astronomical
Student Organization.
The program will air
later on UT Arlington’s
cable channel. UT
Arlington Today will
publish the times when
scheduled.
Photos by Martin Durbec. |
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April 13, 2007
Dr. Suresh C Sharma, Professor
of Physics and Director, Center for Nanostructured
Materials has been elected for a four-year term
evolving annually from Vice-Chair-Elect to
Vice-Chair, Chair, and Past Chair of the Executive
Committee of the Texas Section of the American
Physical Society. |
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April 6, 2007
UT Arlington Today
Dr. James L. Horwitz, professor and chair of
the Department of Physics, presented an invited
colloquium to the High-Altitude Observatory of the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Colorado, April 4. The title was “Dynamic
Fluid-Kinetic Simulations of High-Latitude
Ionospheric Outflows and their Compact
Parameterization for Use in Global Magnetospheric
Modeling.” |
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March 30, 2007
UT
ARLINGTON Today
Dr. Manfred Cuntz, associate professor of
physics will be representing UT Arlington at the
Universities Space Research Association (USRA)
Council of Institutions Annual Meeting, Friday,
March 30, in Columbia, Maryland. USRA is “an entity
in and by means of which universities and other
research institutions may cooperate with one
another, with the Government of the United States,
and with other organizations toward the development
of knowledge associated with space science and
technology.” |
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March 26, 2007
News Release
PLANETARIUM SHOW, "COSMIC CSI," SEARCHES UNIVERSE
FOR LIFE
ARLINGTON—“Cosmic CSI: Looking for Life in the
Universe,” an original new show developed with a
grant from NASA, is opening this week at The
Planetarium at UT Arlington.
The production takes its cue from “CSI,” its
spin-off series, “CSI: Miami” and “CSI: NY” and
numerous other television shows featuring
sharp-minded investigators armed with high-powered
forensic gadgetry that have burst into popular
culture in the last few years. The new planetarium
show takes the investigation out of our solar
system, using tools that were non-existent just a
few years ago, to search for life in the universe.
It investigates planets around nearby stars, extreme
life forms on planet Earth and future missions to
answer that great galactic question. . .got life?
The search has a dual focus, said Dr. Manfred Cuntz,
associate professor of physics at the University.
“Scientists are making progress in finding life in
the universe by using new search methods to identify
planets in habitable zones around many different
types of stars,” Cuntz said. “At the same time,
scientists are finding that life, in very simple
forms, can survive and even thrive in conditions
never thought possible, like organisms that live at
temperature of 210 degrees Fahrenheit or more in hot
vents or at temperature of less than 10 degrees in
Antarctica.”
Planetarium Director Bob Bonadurer said the show was
developed with the help of an Education Public
Outreach supplemental grant connected to an earlier
research grant awarded to Cuntz to work with FUSE, a
NASA-supported astrophysics mission launched in June
1999 to explore the universe using the technique of
high-resolution spectroscopy in the far-ultraviolet
spectral region.
Cuntz said he did not originally anticipate that his
and his fellow scientists’ findings would form the
basis for an entertaining and educational
planetarium show. But when the new, technologically
superior planetarium opened on campus last March,
the potential became obvious. The show was created
by planetarium staff in collaboration with Cuntz,
and is narrated by Glenn Morshower, an actor and a
native Texan, who has played parts in shows like
“24,” “CSI” and “Star Trek”
Cosmic CSI is showing at 7 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays in the planetarium, 700
Planetarium Place. For more information, call (817)
272-0123.
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March 19, 2007
UT
ARLINGTON Today
Dr. James Horwitz, chair of the
department of physics, presented “Ionospheric Plasma
Transport Simulation-Based Formula Parameterization
of O+ Outfluxes Produced by Wave-Driven Transverse
Ion Heating and Soft Electron Precipitation,” at the
International Space Simulation School-8 (ISSS-8) in
Kauai, Hawaii. |
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January 24 - 25, 2007
Nobel Laureate David M. Lee
Nobel Laureate David M. Lee from
Cornell University will deliver the Presidential
Lecture in Physics at the
Physics Colloquium at 4 p.m. Wednesday, January
24, 2007 in the Planetarium in the
Chemistry and Physics Building. He will speak on
“Matrix Isolated Free Radicals: Chemistry and
Physics Below 3 K“.
Nobel Laureate David M. Lee from
Cornell University will deliver the Presidential
Public Lecture in Physics titled
”Superfluidity, a Century of Discovery” on
January 25 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Room 100,
Nedderman Hall. A reception will follow the
presentation at 5 p.m.
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January 5, 2007
UT ARLINGTON TODAY
Physics Department Chairman Dr. James Horwitz,
Assistant Professor Dr Yi-Jiun Su, researcher
Dr. Sam Jones and graduate student Fajer
Jaafari attended the American Geophysical Union
meeting in San Francisco in December. Dr. Horwitz
presented a paper entitled “DyFK-simulation-based
formulaic representation of the effects of
wave-driven ion heating and electron precipitation
on ionospheric outflows” and chaired a session
“Polar Cap, Cusp, and High-Latitude Ionosphere,”
while Jaafari presented a poster titled “DyFK
Simulation of the O+ Density Trough at 5000 km
Altitude in the Polar Cap.” Horwitz was co-author on
another paper, and Su and Jones presented a paper on
“Electron Acceleration on Jupiter-Io Flux Tube:
Possible Generation Mechanism of S-Bursts.”
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